Phil Spector

Spector was one of the most inventive and influential of record producers, and remains notorious for his anti-social behaviour. He learned on the job with Leiber and Stoller (co-writing ‘Spanish Harlem’ with Leiber) and then with Ertegun. As a writer he collaborated with Goffin and King and with Greenwich and Barry, the latter two providing him with the raw material for a string of hit singles. He took the young Wilson under his wing; Jagger and Richards also hung around profitably. He supposedly threatened both Lennon and Cohen at pistol-point, and attempted to exclude Cohen and Turner from work in hand.